Finally Forever

by April Zyon

  “I swear it, sweetheart.” Reaching over, he took her hand in his and squeezed gently. “I intend on being around a very long time to annoy you. At least into my eighties if I can manage to survive that long, God willing. I have this image of me chasing you around with my walker that I have to at least fulfill.”

  Alison couldn’t help but laugh. She nodded and squeezed his hand in hers. “Good. I look forward to that. I want and I need that. I might even let you catch me too.”

  “Damn straight I’ll catch you. Even when we need to worry about brittle bones, breaking a hip, and all that shit, I plan on loving you with everything I have.” He lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “Let’s pick up the pace a bit. You good with a steady trot at the very least?”

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve been riding almost as long as you, buddy.” She let his hand go and kicked her horse into a run, allowing the mare to stretch her legs and begin to race across the fields.

  She heard his laughter behind her before the sound of his horse’s hooves pounding the hard-packed earth started to get closer. With the stallion, he could easily outrun her and the mare, but she knew he wouldn’t do that. He pulled up closer and shot her a dirty look warning of retribution.

  Alison snickered and leaned in closer to the mare’s neck. She was happy to have him racing along with her. “Come on, Joshua, lead us where we are going.”

  “You seem to know where we’re going,” he said back. “Just stick to this trail, and when it branches off, take the right split. We’re heading for the eastern section.” The stallion, when she took a look, was fighting to try and get the bit. If he managed to, the entire race to the herd would be long over. Josh was keeping it from him, though, for now.

  She did as he told her, raced along the trail and took the right split. She pulled the reins in and allowed the mare to slow. “You doing okay, Joshua?” She was worried that perhaps she was racing him far too fast.

  “Of course,” he said, sailing on by with a tip of his hat. “You shouldn’t ever slow down, sugar!” he called out before laughing and letting the stallion go a little harder.

  Alison watched him as he raced away and snickered. “Oh, but the plus side of watching him race away is the best of views,” she said to herself, and took off after him.

  ****

  When they pulled their horses to a stop at the side of a small pond, Alison easily dismounted and wrapped her mare’s reins into the bushes so she wouldn’t be able to get away. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here,” she admitted as she turned to look around. The view was utterly spectacular. “Amazing.” She felt more than heard him approaching her. His arms slid around her from behind and he squeezed as he kissed her neck.

  “It’s one of my hideouts. Only Brant and Brandy know where it is. Well, I’m sure Pops knew, and Mama knows, but they never came out here. There are a number of them on the property. This one’s banks are too hard of an angle for the cattle to use as a water source, so we don’t have to worry about them joining us. Beyond the fact there are no herds out this way.”

  “So it’s just you and me?” she asked, and tilted her head slightly to give him more access to the side of her neck. “Will you do that again? I like it, a lot.” She shivered in reaction to the brush of his lips to her neck. “I’m happy there are just us out here and we won’t be interrupted.” She gave him a side glance and licked her lips. “I need you, Joshua. I will always need you.”

  “I get your meaning, and yes, not another soul will come out this way. The hands don’t know about it, and unless you know exactly where you’re going, you can’t find it. It’s perfectly nestled between the hills at the right spots from the trails. Absolute, perfect, and complete seclusion. So, if you are of a mind to, you could strip down and go for a swim. In the nude,” he said, his eyes dancing in merriment.

  “I am very much of a mind to do just that.” Ali turned in his arms and looked up at him. “I love swimming. Honestly have never swam in the nude, though.” There were a lot of things that she was a little backwards about, one of them being swimming or being with a male while naked. But him, she wanted to be naked with.

  “You have never skinny dipped?” he asked. His eyes widened in horror when she shook her head. “Oh my, you poor thing,” he whispered, cupping her cheeks. “How could you be so deprived of such a fun thing? It’s practically unthinkable. All right, we can fix this huge error in your education. I want you to get nekkid as a newborn babe and go leap into the water. I will even promise to mostly not peek while you are doing so.”

  “Well you have to remember I began to model when I was seventeen. Before that I knew that you were the only one for me, so I haven’t shared being naked with anyone, ever. Even on shoots, I had to have my own dressing room because I refused to be naked with anyone else. I know, I know, I am a weirdo, but the truth is that I’ve been waiting for these firsts with you.”

  “Really?” he asked, his expression going soft. Leaning in, he kissed her gently. “Now I’m feeling like a schmuck for teasing you. Do I need to beg your forgiveness? Cause I’m actually not bad at it. Unless you ask my mother, in which case she’ll say I’m usually a little too sarcastic and not sincere enough. Whatever that means.”

  “Nope. How about instead of begging for my forgiveness, you give me a kiss and then help me get naked, so that you and I can both go skinny dipping?” She wanted to feel his hands on her skin, wanted to feel him touching her and baring her skin for his view and joy.

  Joshua licked his lips slowly and nodded. “All right,” he said, his voice a little husky. “This may well be a very bad idea. We might not even make it into the water if we do it your way. I’m willing to risk it, though.” Lowering his head, he kissed her. Not a brush of lips, but a full-on kiss that had her toes curling in her boots.

  When he released her lips, her hands were fisted in his shirt. She licked her lower lip. “If we don’t make it into the water, I wouldn’t be at all upset with that. I’m very happy with just getting naked with you and finally making love with you. I want to be with you and I can’t think of a better place to lose my V-Card than right here in this beautiful setting with you.” Only him, it had always been him.

  He frowned at her until she saw the little light click on and his mouth rounded into an O. His mouth was working like he had questions to ask and didn’t know which to say. Or maybe he was tossing them as they came to him. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” he muttered with a shrug and color in his face.

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” Suddenly, Ali felt like an ass. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him. “If you want to get undressed, I will too, and just see you in the water?” That way he could have time to pull himself back together and hopefully forgive her for whatever she had said that had caused that look on his face.

  “What? No, Alison,” he said softly. Catching her before she could get too far, he tugged her in close to rest his forehead to hers. They were practically eye to eye. “Honey, I’m just stunned. I know you said you’d waited on me, but I didn’t realize that you meant you’d waited on me. This is huge, massive, a big deal, sweetheart. You caught me completely off guard and actually stumped me. Trust me, the dozens of smart ass things that raced through my head were not appropriate. At least not with the woman I love.”

  “You know how I was raised, Joshua, and since I’ve known you my whole life, why wouldn’t I have waited? It’s worth it, isn’t it? To wait for the one that you care for? I know that it’s a back-asswards view I have of life, but I just felt that I should have. I knew that you wouldn’t and I never would have expected that.” She was babbling, but to end her own misery she whispered, “Will you just kiss me and maybe we can forget this awkward moment so that I don’t die of embarrassment?”

  “Oh, honey,” he whispered. “Don’t ever be embarrassed to tell me anything. I may have grown up with you and know a lot, but I don’t know everything there is to know about you. I am thrilled you waited for me, but damn, how
I suddenly wish I’d grabbed a pair and just told you how I felt years ago. So, from now on, no more embarrassment when you tell me stuff, okay?” He looked down at her and gathered her closer to him, brushing his lips lightly to her cheek.

  “I will try, but you know me.” She seemed to get embarrassed at the smallest things, which was so odd because of what she did for a living. “So did you still want to go for that swim, or would you rather just lie under the tree and make love with me? We can swim after, but I really would love to have your body moving against mine, showing me just how good life will be for us.”

  He lifted his head to look at the tree in question, then the pond, then the tree, and back once more. He looked torn. “Okay, full honesty, because we need to always be honest. I want you so bad right now I’m about to burst my jeans. It’s your first time, though, and under a tree at some random swimming hole just doesn’t seem right, love. I definitely want to swim, and God yes, I want to make love to you, but I am really trying to be the gentleman my mama raised.” He winced and shot her an apologetic look. “I want to do this right with you, Alison. I can’t believe I’m about to say these words, but I think we should wait until we’re in a bed together.”

  Ali nodded and said. “As long as you don’t decide that you don’t want to make love with me tonight, I think that I will survive.” It was so sweet that he wanted to ensure her happiness and pleasure. “So we will swim, enjoy the rest of the day, go back to the ranch, and get cleaned up. We will then have dinner with our moms and go to bed, together?”

  “Damn straight. I dare either of them to say we need to sleep in separate rooms. I’ll fucking throw you over my shoulder, jump in my truck, and race to the nearest four-star hotel room with you. We are making love tonight, sweetheart. Come hell or high water,” he said in a firm tone.

  “Good.” She patted his chest and pulled back from him. “Then I better undress myself or you or I will never get away with not making love here and now.” She peeled out of her clothes, her eyes never leaving his as she bared herself to him for the first time. “Come on Josh, get naked,” she teased. “And can I just jump in or should I wade in?” She wasn’t sure of the depth of the pond, but knew he would know. If he would start to talk instead of just staring at her.

  He made some garbled sound as he stared at her, his eyes raking up and down her body with definite heat. After a moment, he shook his head and blinked at her. “Uh, off the outcropping, you can jump. It’s about twenty feet down from there. Anywhere else I’d recommend wading since it goes down in odd little shelves like uneven stairs. It was a lime quarry at one point that was abandoned when they hit the underground spring.”

  “Sounds good. Maybe once I’m in the water, you will wake up and join me?” She did like the way that it felt, though, the heated look he was giving her, the absolute and utter desire that he was wearing as an expression. Oh yes, she loved it a lot. “See you in a moment.” She ran up and to the outcropping of rocks he was talking about then jumped into the water feet first.

  As she surfaced, she felt a small splash. A moment later, he was surfacing and shaking out his short hair. He had to have torn his clothing off to get in the water as fast as he had, or he was still partially dressed. Really hard to tell with the distortion of the water around him.

  Alison giggled and looked at him. “So do you still have your jeans on, cowboy? There is no way in the world that you were able to get naked that fast and jump into the water right behind me. Just saying. So tell me, did you rip your clothes or still have them on?”

  “I am as naked as the day I was born. I have no clue where my clothing may have landed, nor do I particularly care. Your cute little ass racing off had me getting undressed as fast as humanly possible. Apparently, that was pretty quick,” wrinkling his nose a little as he moved closer to her.

  “Well, I’m glad that you were able to get in here as quickly as you did. Saved me from missing you and stuff.” She didn’t move closer to him, as much as she wanted to, because then she would wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and that would just be all around bad for both of them. “How about we dive and see if we can both reach the bottom and bring something back up?” She knew that the bottoms of ponds were pretty littered with mud, algae, and trees or limbs, but she didn’t care.

  “Are you trying to avoid me now, honey?” Cocking an eyebrow, he watched her and his grin just grew. “All right. Deal. For now, but I will get my hands on you soon.” Joshua backed up from her a bit before he slid below the surface with a little finger wave.

  “Oh you dirty, rotten…” she grumbled when he escaped her beneath the surface of the water. Taking a deep breath, she too dove toward the bottom of the pond, her hand reaching out and stroking over his back and to his shoulder as she did so. When she surfaced, not making the bottom first try, she was laughing. “Sorry, love, I didn’t see you there.” Oh she was so going to hell for lying and knew it.

  He was sputtering and eyeing her up. “I call bullshit, Alison Hollister. You knew just what the hell you were doing. I damn near swallowed half the pond when you pulled that. Behave yourself,” he ordered. Taking a breath, he sank down under the water.

  He told her to behave herself? How could she when all she wanted to do was slide under the water and come up with her arms and legs wrapped around him with him kissing her the way that she knew he wanted to?

  With a stroke of her fingers to his cheek, she dove once more. This time, she let the poor man be, for now.

  Chapter Six

  Dinner had been a long, torturous event. Both of their mothers had apparently had to discuss dozens of things with them. The women hadn’t been satisfied with one word answers either. Theresa had ensured the meal was several agonizing courses. Something the woman had never done before.

  Finally, though, they were able to break free from the women’s clutches. Or so they thought. Apparently, that wasn’t how the night was going to go. First, her mother insisted that they have a little chat. Then her mother attempted to get Alison to sleep with her, in the same room for the love of God, but Ali knew the ploy for what it was.

  Poor Josh was likely climbing the walls since he’d managed to slip out. Lucky bastard.

  When she was finally able to get escape her mother, Alison ran to Josh’s room, closing the door behind her and locking it. “Do you think that maybe we should pull the dresser over in front of it? I swear I wouldn’t put it past either woman to find a locksmith or a key to the door and come in here just to keep us apart.” She was mostly teasing. “And what kills me is that they aren’t trying to keep Rhys and Gwennie apart, so what the hell gives?” She turned to look at him and lost all train of thought. “Goodness.” He stood there, naked, and God, was he ever glorious. She saw the scars that he had on his body, but didn’t pay them any heed. They were reminders of his past, and they were reminders of the fact that they had to live each day to the fullest because one never knew how many tomorrows they might have left.

  The bed cover was pulled back and the lighting was low. Candles burned on the nightstands, and she could smell flowers in the air. “You did all of this for me?” she asked in a shocked tone, standing before him and reaching out to touch him because she needed to feel the hardness of him against her hand.

  “No, some other woman with a mother as insane as my own,” he said. Taking her hand, he pulled her in closer to him. “Of course I did this for you, honey. This night is special, for both of us, and I wanted it to be a very special memory for you in the years to come. As to the door,” he said, looking past her to the object of mention. “We’ll throw the deadbolt. I know my mother well. It’s why I had it installed. She’s a snooper, and no one’s gotten past it yet.”

  “Good.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held onto him. “This is a special night, isn’t it? This is our night. The first of a very, very long line of them. Right?” she asked hopefully as she brushed her lips to his shoulder and then to his chest. “I lov
e you, Joshua. How about you go throw the deadbolt and I will get undressed?” She hesitated and asked, “Unless you want to remove my clothes for me?” She wanted to feel his large, calloused hands against the smooth expanse of her skin. She needed to know that he was as affected by her as she was by him.

  “This time, I want to,” he said with a smile. He began to move her toward the door, the hard surface meeting her back a few moments later. Moving a hand, he latched the heavy duty deadbolt before pressing his hands to the door on either side of her. “Kiss me,” he whispered as he leaned in, his lips brushing hers.

  She didn’t even hesitate. Leaning up on her tiptoes, she did so. She held him close with her hands on his shoulders and kissed him for all she was worth. When his hands began to work on her clothes, she moaned, their tongues mating and moving together as he bared her skin to the air.

  They broke the kiss only long enough for him to yank her shirt over her head before they were kissing frantically again. She could feel his fingers working the hooks of her bra before it sagged, held only by her arms. When his hands dropped to her jeans and got to work on the button and zipper, he tugged her away from the door. They made a small loop before they were heading deeper into the room.

  She stepped out of her pants, dropped the bra, and kissed him in only her lacy panties. When they parted, Alison looked up at Joshua and licked her lips. “Wow.” The man could kiss, and then some! “One more piece of clothing and we will both be naked together.” She wasn’t nervous. Oddly enough, she was excited and anxious. She was a little worried she wouldn’t be good enough for him in bed, but that was something they would be able to work on. Together. “So why are you waiting?” she asked softly.

  “Shh,” he whispered, brushing his fingers up her arm gently. “There’s absolutely no need to rush, Alison. Besides. I intend to enjoy this moment, and make damn sure you do as well. Up on the bed, honey, on your back. I need to have my dessert now.”